City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. And call this meeting the July 21 2026 regular meeting of this with your city council at 706. Please all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. And before we begin tonight's meeting, please note that digital copies of the packet are available on our website. You may scan the QR code that's provided outside the door and scan it, and you may open up the packet through our website. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mrs. Borg? Here. Mr. Wagner? Absent. Mr. McAlto?

Here.

Mr. Pinkush? Absent. Mr. Denmark? Absent. Mrs. Lohn? Here. Mr. Shen? Mayor Shen?

Here.

You have a quorum.

Okay. Thank you. Is there any requests for excused absences?

Yes, both Mr. Denmark and Mr. Pinkush submitted their requests earlier today.

Okay. Is there a motion or a second?

I'll make that motion.

And I'll second.

So any discussion of anything reported from an email or a correspondence you can share for us?

Sure. Both Mr. Pinkush and Mr. Denmark provided the reason that they are busy with work this evening.

Okay.

Okay. No further discussion here. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Voting on the motion to excuse Mr. Pincush and Mr. Denmark from tonight's meeting. Mr. McAlto?

Yes.

Mrs. Sloan? No. Mrs. Borg? No. Mayor Shen?

Yes.

The motion fails 2-2. And Mr. Pincush and Mr. Denmark are not excused.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next on the agenda item is citizen comments. Citizen comments on the agenda item are welcome, except those scheduled for public hearing are welcome at this time. Those who have signed in by the door will be given first priority to speak. Please note, this is not a time for dialogue. Rather, it's the time for citizens to speak and the council to listen. Time is limited to two minutes. I'll set a timer. Madam Clerk, is anyone signed in?

Mr. Eric Fleming.

Mr. Fleming. Please note, you have two minutes. I'll put a timer for you.

Good afternoon. My name is Eric Fleming. I purchased a lot here about two years ago. As many of you guys know, I'm being sued by the city for having put a driveway in the lot. And I've brought this up to every council member, the situation. I yet have to speak to Jackie to this day who's bringing the lawsuit. She refers me to the lawyers. The lawyers refer me to the council. The council says they can't do anything about it. So it's 2 minutes, very little time to talk about it. I brought up the subject matter last month and apparently nobody took it serious. Doesn't sound like there's going to be an executive session or if there's going to be a conversation. I did bring, I wrote an email to you, Victor. You responded saying it was out of your hands. I think, uh, two years of being litigation, not being able to perform a development of any sort of my lot, not being able to move forward with a lot. Um, and it's now moved past, uh, uh, building and, uh, land use issue and it's turned into a zoning issue. It is in code. 20 day periods is when I'm supposed to receive a response that hasn't been performed. I brought it up multiple times in litigation. We will move forward on things. I'm telling you now you guys need to take this serious. I would like to work with my community members, but it's being you guys have put me in a difficult spot We're two years into litigation. I cannot perform. I can't do anything on the lot. I'd like to settle the issue. And so I ask you once again, please take this matter seriously. I'd love to talk with each and every one of you about it. I know a lot of the stuff, a lot of the details have been left out. But it is a zoning issue now. That's all I have to say.

Thank you, Mr. Fleming. No others are signed in. Is there anybody in the audience who wishes to speak for citizens discussion at this time? Okay. Seeing then we're going to move on with our meeting. There's another at the end of the meet toward the end of the meeting. There's another area space opportunity for citizens to speak and their assistance comment period. approval next item we have approval of agenda and consent agenda is there a motion and a second to approve tonight's agenda and consent agenda i'll make the motion i'll second that okay thank you is there any discussion okay seeing no discussion Madam clerk, will you please call the roll.

Voting on the motion to approve tonight's agenda and consent agenda. Mrs. Lone. Yes. Mrs. Borg.

Yes.

Mr. McAlto.

Yes.

Mayor Shen.

Yes.

The motion passes and tonight's agenda and consent agenda are approved. On tonight's consent agenda is Resolution 2026-032, Authorizing Acceptance of an AARP Community Challenge Grant in the amount of $10,000 for shoreline pocket park improvements and appropriating funds. Resolution 2026-033, confirming the appointment of the City Manager to represent the City with the Begich Towers Condominium Association of Apartment Owners, Inc. Resolution 2026-034, establishing and supporting the Whittier Junior Entrepreneur License Program. the approval of the June 16th, 2026 regular meeting minutes, scheduling a work session for July 29th to discuss election code, and scheduling special meeting for August 4th.

At this time, Does anyone wish to declare a substantial financial interest or to declare a conflict of substantial financial interest on anything appearing on the agenda? Okay, seeing none, we're going to move forward to presentations and reports.

Mayor, before we do presentations, I'd like to jump to the top of the line because you did approve something this evening. And I do know that we have some littles here in the room that I'd like to give this presentation to if it's okay.

Of course.

So I would like the Three Brothers Lemonade that, for those of you who are in the room, they are our first junior entrepreneur license recipients. If they would like to come up front, we'd like to give them a little certificate. So first I'd like to say that we all have kids, we have all loved lemonade stands and we all love entrepreneurship and I think Whittier is a perfect place to start them small and teach them big things and With the help of some council members and some community members, we came up with the idea to start a junior entrepreneur license, which is a half the size of a normal business license. And it gives them the ability to sell their lemonade and understand the concept of have to applying for certain permits to be able to operate. And I'm just really proud that these kids have stepped up to show what entrepreneurship looks like. We will have the application and everything online for anybody else from the ages of five and up to 15, because even the little ones have really great ideas. Good job, guys. Thank you.

Thank you for that. That was pretty cool. All right. Next up, we have presentations. And on top, we have our audit presentation with Altman Rogers and Company.

Justin Englert, Thank you, Mr Mayor members of Council member members of public, my name is just an English I am an audit supervisor with all men Rogers and company, I was one of the auditors on the city of Whittier's fyi 25 audit. Justin Englert, Just a brief summary, so we. take a substantive approach over our audit. We test the internal controls related to the cash disbursements, payroll, material checks, journal entries, credit cards, and then your revenue transactions. We take a sample out of those populations and then test the approvals, the supporting documentation, the coding, and then that agrees with the policies and procedures set by the city. Uh, out of those transactions, we noted no issues, no errors in any of our testing. Uh, everything looked good following the studies, policies and procedures. We go through the federal and state compliance as the city expended more than a 1Million dollars in federal funds and 750,000 dollars in state funds. We perform a federal and state single audit. In that single audit, we look at a risk-based approach of the program. So for federal, we look at your federal lands access program, which was approximately $2 million of the $4 million. And we look at what the federal government defines as allowable costs and procurement. So allowable costs is making sure that the expenditures in that grant or coded to that grant are allowable under the program. That you're not spending money that isn't allowable and won't have to end up paying it back if. That program gets site or has an offsite review or onsite review. For state funding, we look at your, or we looked at your harbor renovation phase 3 program. Again, it was about 2.8 of the 4.1Million dollars. The state wants us to look at allowable cost matching and reporting. So allowable cost is similar to the federal allowable cost. Matching is making sure that the city matches the funds from the state or has another grant that is designated as the matching participant. And that's being recorded through the life of the program. And then the reporting, making sure that the quarterly, monthly, or semi-annual reports are submitted timely and have proper approval and supporting documentation. Over our work over the compliance federal and state single audit. We noted no issues, no findings. Uh, the city receives an unmodified opinion related to the compliance, which is the best opinion we can give. And then for the normal general funds and normal activity, we go through the balance sheet and the profit and loss statements. And all the grants and we tie out the substantial balances. So we look at. Under cash, we look at the bank statements, bank reconciliations, making sure everything's transferring properly, making sure everything's recorded and reconciled for grants. We make sure that it's under. That the expenditures reported agree with what is actually being reported. We make sure the year end accrual is recorded. So basically. making sure that cost-reimbursable grants, revenue expenses equal at the end of the year. And then we go through the P&L and make sure revenues and expenses are properly stated and have support for all of that. Overall, again, the city receives an unmodified opinion over the financial statements no issues no findings. As noted earlier in our work session, there was a finding last year that has been resolved so good good work on that that has been resolved. And it was a clean very clean opinion. Any questions.

No, thank you again for coming out and giving this report and thank you to our, our staff for keeping a clean ship here. Mayor's report. The only thing I have on my report is I just want to commend. people who have, and groups who have volunteered their time to our community that we've seen in the last month, 4th of July celebration. I want to commend the folks, Chamber of Commerce, the Fire Department for putting their efforts in making that event happen. We also had several Other groups come in and they've done some volunteer work around the community. If you've been out to the head of the bay or the passenger dock, they've done quite a bit of work out there, clearing brush that improves sight lines for people and cleaning up some of our public lands. So thank you for those volunteers out there. You know, like you guys really, these guys really make a big impact on our community. Ms. Wild?

Mayor, I'm going to start my city manager's report with my wild recognition for the month. My month recognition goes to the incredible team of QAP for their outstanding work they continue to do throughout Whittier. Whether they're paving roads, preparing sites, or constructing critical infrastructure, QAP has consistently demonstrated professionalism, craftsmanship, and commitment to delivering quality work. Their crews have become familiar faces in our community, and their work is making a lasting impact that the residents and visitors will benefit for years to come. I'd like to extend special recognition to Kyle Green and Andrew Lone for their leadership coordination and dedication to every project. I want to recognize each operator, laborer, and truck driver, mechanic, and crew member whose hard work often go unseen. Those long hours, attention to detail, and pride each of you bring to your work have not gone unnoticed by someone like me or the community. Over the past year, QAPP has successfully completed the Head of the Bay paving project and improvements with the Whittier Triangle. If everyone remembers, that was a three-week from start to finish project. Thank you very much. While continuing the construction on Shotgun Cove Road, in the coming weeks, they will also begin the work on the Whittier Falls Park improvements, including site clearing, creation of open space spaces, Hydro-seating, construction of new parking area, and these projects represent meaningful investment in Whittier's future and will improve the quality of life of both residents and visitors. On behalf of the City of Whittier, thank you, Kyle, Andrew, and the entire QAPP team for your dedication and professionalism. We truly appreciate your partnership and everything you do to help us be a stronger Whittier. so now i'll jump into the city manager's report as you may have noticed i have changed things up a little and i've also turned this Report into a newsletter that is easily accessible for the community It's located on our website as well as on our social media Giving the ability for the community to see in blocks What's happening and what's going on? this doesn't take away from us being able to answer the questions that you have as council members just trying to give some bullet points and As you can see, the layout is a little different, but it still has just as much information in it. I do know that there have been some questions that have been given to our finance director and that she would like to be able to go over her report with you. Her report starts on page 11.

Thank you, Jackie.

Mr. Mayor, members of council. So I don't often go over the monthly financials with you, but there are some highlights that I'd like to point out because I think it's important for the public to really understand some of the big ticket items that we're working on as a city. But I would also like to, first of all, thank the good folks from the Anchor Inn and the Shen family for their donation to the 4th of July celebration. So really grateful for that. Thank you. I want to start out just by talking about the grant, the status of our grants, give you a quick update on that. So just since our last month's report, we have been awarded a new $410,000 grant from DEC for planning and design to extend our water line along Whittier Street and tie into the Boat Harbor. So this is a project that's been on the public works director's list. I know he's wanted to do that for a long time and we were able to get on the state revolving fund list for that project to get it designed. So then in addition to that, we were awarded $1.5 million that will help us to purchase a new ambulance and hopefully get us part of the way toward having funding for our new restroom that's planned in the boat harbor. We were given a $410,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration in furtherance of our Shotgun Cove Road extension project. And then I think I might have actually announced this last month, but nonetheless, $4,074,520 from MARAD for the PIDP grant to engineer replacement of the DeLong dock. So that's all really exciting. You know, that's almost $7 million in grant funds. just in the last month and a half, two months. We've also submitted, since our last report, two major grant applications. One is for $15.7 million for Shotgun Cove Road that would further extend that road. We just have a little over a mile to go before we will get to the end at Trinity Point, and this has been a project that's been in the work for nearly two decades. So thanks to the good folks that are working really hard on that project. And then also we submitted a $52 million grant application for the replacement of the DeLong dock, and that's through the PIDP grant program. And we have just had a tremendous amount of support for replacement of that dock for logistical purposes. So we're really excited about the possibility that that actually could happen. And then we closed out two grants. The water system backup generator was received. So we've closed out that grant and we're closing out the police department equipment technology in the cruisers. We'll be closing that out soon. um we have 35 million dollars in active grants currently being monitored and um worked on by your staff uh 10 million dollars is the shotgun cove road approximately four and a half million dollars on the harbor we're still not finished with that project the buckner building we're we're uh we have a 5.8 million dollar grant it's a it's a combination of multiple grants um for the buckner building $6.7 million for the water well replacement project. That's what folks see over here that's happening to completely replace water wells in Whittier with upgraded capacity. We have a $4 million grant for engineering the long dock replacement. um 325 000 for our wastewater system uh 301 h waiver 81 000 for a safety action plan 410 000 on the whittier waterline extension that i talked about and then asbestos abatement at the bti and then a myriad of smaller grants for alpar and disaster funding and pocket parks and that kind of thing so anyway great um great news on the on the grant front and as i mentioned In our previous meeting last year alone, we spent more than $8 million of actual expenditures on state and federal grants, which amounts to $30,000 per man, woman, and child in Whittier. That grant money brings those funds from outside of town, spends them in town, and allows us to do really amazing things to upgrade our infrastructure, and that's not at the cost of our local taxpayers. So really, you know, we're really proud of that extra work. I don't ordinarily respond to in writing to folks that write in and say, hey, tell me why we did this or how we did this. But I'm really excited about the fact that folks in Whittier are actually paying attention to our financials. So I wanted folks to not be discouraged and encourage them to continue asking great questions. But with respect to a particular inquiry we got this month that I think council's seen, I just wanted to answer a few of the questions, if you'll bear with me. One has to do with the observation that multiple line items in our budget have exceeded the annual budget already, and we're six months through the year. I think it's important for folks to know that the city manager is held to the fund level of budgeting, and that means that not every line item in the city has to come in under budget. We don't come back to council and say, you know, we're about to overspend this line item. Will you give us more money? What we do instead is we cut back on other items in the budget and we use that cost savings if we do need to go over in one line item. Part of the reason for that is we budget two years out and a budget is a plan and you can't really ever know for sure what each line item is going to entail. So we have a lot of flexibility, but the city manager is held to the bottom line budget. and if we do need more resources we do come back to council by resolution and ask for when we use the word and appropriating funds that's what we're asking we're asking you to increase the budget and we like to do that very rarely so um anyway so there will be line items in the budget that have exceeded the budget um it's appropriate to ask you know why is that what are we doing that we didn't anticipate so some of those things um for example the ems department has expenses this year for computer support. And that's because when we first created this department and broke out fire and EMS away from the police department, we were creating a new budget. And we did that in 2024 for the forward-looking 25 and 26. And at that time we told council, you know, this is a work in progress. We're not exactly sure what our costs are gonna be. And as we have actual experience, we'll be able to build a meaningful budget. Computer support is one of those things that just IT services in general for the fire and EMS that was not originally budgeted. On the revenue side, there's some the lease revenues. I think we talked about that a little bit during the audit presentation. The lease revenues are really budgeted. It's kind of hard to describe, but over the life of our leases, we now, according to a new generally accepted accounting standard that came into effect probably about five years ago, we're required to look at all of our leases and calculate from today until the end of the lease term how much money we're going to owe the railroad and how much money someone is going to owe us. And so a lot of those things are based on a multitude of assumptions. And so because we don't exactly know what's going to happen during the course of a year, sometimes those revenues are not easy to know until the end of the year when we do that final calculation. So you will see some revenues, lease revenues that appear lower than our actual and they get trued up at the end of the year. federal grant revenues there is an adjustment that will be made we are showing a negative three thousand dollars or so in federal grant revenues that just has to do with an accrual entry that was done to recognize the timing of revenues and expenses and in this case we really should be considering that instead of as negative revenue it will actually be the city's expense on its cost share for a federal grant You will see in May, during the month of May, there was a reduction in personal property tax revenues for May of $15,000. For the year, there's a positive balance of maybe 5,000. What that $15,000 is, it's just offsetting a billing that went out earlier in the year. So it's just a timing difference between the months. We build Alyeska pipeline for personal property in Whittier, and then we reversed that invoice because we have new staff that are learning. And we don't actually bill Alyeska Pipeline based on our appraiser. The appraiser still estimates the value of the personal property, but the state has its own oil and gas property tax appraiser. And so our invoice, when we do bill them during the standard billing cycle, will be for the amount that the state appraiser bills for. Ground passenger fees are currently showing in the budget as zero. I think council is well aware that that program started in January. We expect our first material influx of those ground transportation fees. returns and payments to come by the end of July. That's the due date for the April, May, and June period. So we're allowing people to file quarterly, and that's why you don't see any revenues reported prior to that. We have... In the administration department, there's administration license and permits. There's about a $9,000 charge in there that has to do with the new property tax CAMA, property tax module that council approved some months ago. We haven't increased the budget for that, but you'll see that that line item looks like it's over budget. The police computer support, there's a one-time payment in there for almost $5,000. That was to have ACS come in and configure the new police department server. So we swapped out computer servers this year. We do that periodically on a five or seven year cycle. So this just happened to be that year. So it does appear that we're overshooting the budget on that line item. But again, that's an unavoidable expense and we will be under spending in other areas. We could do a budget movement. The city manager has the authority to move the budget and say, oh, we've overspent here, we're going to move the budget there. I don't recommend that when it is for one-time things, because we like to keep the budget fairly... consistent with what we expect it to be over time, and then it's okay if we exceed the budget periodically, then people can ask these great questions. Community support is over budget for the year. Council will recall that you approved the returning to Norwegian cruise lines of a material donation that they had made to the community. So that went against the community support line item because that's what they were paying for initially was support for our high school kids to go to Washington DC and purchase of some benches. The fire department, we've had a lot of vehicle repair costs on the ambulance. As you know, we've had problems with keeping that ambulance fully operational. So we've exceeded the budget on that. So those are the highlights in response to citizen comments and questions. And I'm happy to answer any other questions council members may have. And thank you for the time.

Any questions or comments for Ms. Urchinger? Jamie, Ms. Lund?

I was just going to say that was very comprehensive. Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much. Ms. Weil, is there any more items for city manager report?

I would just like to add that on the last page, it does have a breakdown of our meetings that are coming up. So as a reminder, there is a work session on the election code on July 28th is the planning and zoning session. Work session, which we will be working on Title 17. That is an ongoing process. July 29th is a work session for election code. We've been working on that for a little over a year and a half. On August 4th will be a special city council meeting to discuss the lease ordinance and possible resolutions. And then your August 18th is your regular council meeting.

Thank you very much. Next item we have is public hearings. Item five, non-code ordinance 2026-003, an ordinance amending chapter 10-30 of the Whittier Municipal Code to clarify the commercial recreation ground passenger fee as a fee and not a toll on roads owned or maintained by the federal government or the state of Alaska. I'm going to open this to public hearing for non-code ordinance 2026-003 at this time at 741. Madam Clerk, has anyone signed in to speak at this time?

No one has signed in.

Okay, thank you. Is there anybody in the audience who wishes to speak to non-code ordinance 2026-003? If there is no further public comment, the public hearing for non-code ordinance 2026-003 is closed at this time at 742. Is there a motion and a second to adopt non-code ordinance 2026-003?

I'll make the motion.

I'll second that.

Okay, thank you. Do we have a staff report?

Mayor, since Holly is not here and she's the one who helped work on this, I'm just going to read from the agenda statement so that it's on the record.

Okay.

On November 29th, 2024, the City Council adopted Ordinance 24005, establishing a commercial recreational ground The passenger fee and an implicated implementation date of January 1st, 2026, the council later adopted the ordinance 2026, 0, 0, 1, and on February 17th, 2026 to clarify reporting procedures and timelines for businesses registered. subject to the fee. On April 24th, 2026, the former acting attorney, General Cox, sent a letter to the city demanding repeal of the fee based on the state of Alaska's concerns that the fee may constitute a toll in violation of the 1997 toll agreement between the state of Alaska and the Federal Highway Administration. The city remains the city maintains that the fee does not charge for the privilege of using any road including any federal or state road but instead applies to services and facilities provided to passengers or of recreational commercial ground transportation vehicles and to the industry and to the industry itself the proposed amendment is intended to preserve the city's ability to use the fee revenue for improvements to city maintained roads that are not federally aided or state-owned or maintained, where those roads are frequented by recreational commercial ground passengers and vehicles, while making expressly clear that this is a fee, not a toll. That changes in two sections in your ordinance, Mayor, on page 18. Line 47, it adds the words maintaining city-owned facilities and providing, and it strikes its capital assets, roads, public infrastructure to provide related services. And then on the end of line 50, it adds no fees shall be used to operate, equip, finance, or maintain state or federal owned or maintain state or federal roads or related infrastructure, nor shall be the fee shall nor shall the fee be charged for privilege of use of any state or federally owned or maintained roads.

Thank you miss well, is there any questions or comments. On the line online.

Now.

I thank you again. If there's no further discussion, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Voting on the motion to adopt ordinance 2026-003, an ordinance amending chapter 10.30 of the Whittier Municipal Code to clarify the commercial recreational ground passenger fee is a fee and not a toll on roads owned or maintained by the federal government or the state of Alaska. Mrs. Loan. Yes. Mrs. Borg.

Yes.

Mr. Micolto.

Yes.

Mayor Shen. Yes.

Yes.

The motion passes and ordinance 2026-003 is adopted.

Okay, thank you, Madam Clerk. Next, we have ordinance resolutions. We have Resolution 2026-031, adopting standardized lease templates pursuant to Whittier Municipal Code Section 3-38-340. Is there a motion and second to approve Resolution 2026-031?

I'll make that motion. I'll second.

Thank you. Is there a staff report?

Yes, Marin and previously you did have a work session earlier this evening with our lease attorney on and we do have our attorney in the room. Historically, the city has utilized a variety of lease formats with inconsistent provisions, which has created administrative efficiencies and uncertainty for enforcement. Standardized lease templates establish consistent baseline terms and conditions, improve clarity for leases, and strengthens the city's ability to manage and enforce lease obligations fairly and formally. Attached are exhibits A through C have been developed to reflect current code requirements and best practices and have been reviewed by the city attorney for legal sufficiency.

Thank you. Any council discussion on this item? Ms. Lin?

Yeah, I guess just two questions were answered and I got clarity in the work session. So I appreciate the infographics.

Well, I guess for me is I support the idea of having standardized lease template because they provide consistency and clarify. However, I'm concerned that we have not yet received meaningful feedback from our leaseholder. Some of them had been operating for 30, I mean, decades and so on. I think taking the, you know, I believe it's important that we hear their concerns and feedback before we move forward.

Any discussion online?

Yeah, these lease templates have nothing to do with what's going on, right? With the leases that we're working with, right?

Council Member Borg through the Mayor, you are correct. These are standardized template in which as leases come in front of us, they will be implemented so that they are standardized across the board. I believe at this current time we have over 10 different types of leaf standards that have caused confusion throughout the years as stated in the agenda statement.

Thank you.

I have one more question. Sorry. When did you say that administration started working on this template?

Administration started working on the leases 5 and a half years ago, 3 and a half years ago is when we started working on the lease code as well. But at least templates have just back in 2023. I believe we made an additional standardized lease, which was in your guys's work session packet tonight for comparison. It wasn't ever involving work with your legal team as well as individuals that at the time were looking at doing leases or upgrading their leases.

I guess the further discussion, Mr. McIntail, you were concerned about public input on these templates. During this process of updating these templates, was there an opportunity for the public to comment or offer feedback?

When you started when the council started over 4 years ago on working on code revisions and templates. We actually gave a entire draft of not only the code, but leases to multiple business owners with no response back at that time. It was Jessica spieler who was working on it from the legal department.

Okay, thank you. Any further discussion?

I think it is important to distinguish the difference between what's happening tonight with lease templates and what's happening with renewal of leases. So what's really important about the lease templates is the template is basically just a, this is the recipe we're gonna use when we renew someone's lease or someone comes to us for a new lease. If you laid out all of our leases, you would see some leases are for 10 years, some are for 30, some are for 30 with two year options to extend up to 90 years, completely inconsistent. Some have CPI provisions, each year the lease value is supposed to go up, some don't have any of those. Some require appraisals every three years. Some require appraisals every five years. Some require appraisals every three years or five years with CPI, and some require them three years, five years without CPI. Some don't have any increased provisions. There's no provision to increase the amount of money that lessee pays for the life of their lease. So as an administration, when we have somebody who wants to do a new lease, we have zero consistency on how to move forward and treat all of our lessees the same. We're like, do we pick the 10-year lease or the 30-year lease? Do we charge them CPI or not? Do we do five years or 10? So all these issues have really been going on as long as I've been here. And these were the things that council has consistently told us, we need the administration to clean this up. And so in our work sessions, we've had a number of work sessions on these lease templates in the past, but really the discussion centered around what are those inconsistencies and what would be fair to treat everybody the same. And so I think essentially it's, you know, we're going to start out with consistent lease terms. And then if somebody has a specific reason why their lease should have a different term, then that's something council can just decide or the administration can negotiate with someone. But everybody will have appraisals. Everybody will know that their leases are based on a particular term. date i mean a particular rate all the appraisals will be done at the same time and but consistently because another thing is every lease has a appraisal period that's different so if if we as a staff are trying to go out and get appraisals we might have two this year that need to be appraised and seven next year and for the next year and i can tell you because of that inconsistency Our staff is too small to be able to keep on top of those things, and so we're trying to make everybody standard so we're all on the same schedule. So I think that this is really an attempt to do that, and it's not really related to the other lease discussions that are going on at the moment.

Thank you for that. And with this new lease template, that is just for new leaseholders coming on, correct? I just want to clarify.

These lease templates would be used for any of your leases.

So let's say someone had a current lease. Would we transfer this template to all the leases to build that consistency, or would it be implemented as we had new leases and lease renewals?

I'd say it's new leases, lease renewals. But you have to understand that there's some leases that have an intent that just is so far out there that, you know, somebody may have that lease and come in and say, well, I really, really want to do this. And the only way that we can really, really help them be able to do it is by opening up their lease. And instead of opening it up and just amending that lease, we would open it up and put it into the new lease template.

Okay. And that would be a... optional thing for that.

Yeah, if they did not want to adhere to what the original intent was of their lease and the only way that we could help them get to there would be by opening it up and getting it into the new lease template, then we would move forward to that. And if they chose not to, then their lease would stay the way it was.

Until the next renewal cycle or expiration.

So, Mr. Mayor, I think it's important to remember this is exactly what it says it is. It's a template. Templates can have language added to them. They can have language removed from them. They can be personalized for every individual lease. But the administration is correct that it's a lease renewal or a new lease. And it's just designed to provide exactly what it is, is a template going forward. And I think it's important for council to remember that every single lease still requires, you know, but for the very limited provisions for short-term leasing, every lease requires council approval. So even if you adopt this template tonight and you come back and it's got some modifications later for an individual potential lessee, you're still going to get the final say on that.

Oh, thank you. Any further discussion? Any additional questions, Ms. Borg?

No.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Voting on the motion to adopt Resolution 2026-031, Adopting Standardized Lease Templates Pursuant to Whittier Municipal Code Section 3.38.340. Mrs. Borg? Yes. Thank you. Mrs. Lohn? Yes. Mr. McAlto?

Yes.

Mayor Shen?

Yes.

The motion passes and resolution 2026-031 is adopted.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item is under new business, and that is our city attorney evaluation.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In the packet, you will find a summary of the responses received from council. Five out of seven council members responded to the survey that was distributed. Thank you. It's page 123 for anyone who's following along in the packet. This summary is... Just that, a summary of the responses that were received. As you can see, the different evaluation categories, the rating is on a scale from one to five, or I'm sorry, zero to five. The ratings received are anywhere from 3.8 to 4.4 on average. With the overall performance rating, four responses for exceeds expectation and one response for needs improvement. There are additional topics reflected that were summarized based on the comments received in the evaluation. If you would like to highlight any of those for the benefit of the city attorney, I think that would be the time for that. I might also add that these were requested by council to be on an every six month basis. So if you have any direction for legal counsel for the city attorney or would like to vote on a goal or a priority, that this might be a good time to do so.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from council members? Ms. Borg?

No.

Okay. I have none myself. Item 14 is the Alaska Municipal League Summer Conference for August 25th to the 28th. Ms. Wilde, did you want to update the council on it?

I think a little bit from both of us, maybe.

So in the fall of November, there is the Alaska Municipal League Annual Conference, and it's a week long for newly elected officials. and it has seminars for council members and I believe even commission members if they choose to participate. I highly recommend it. There is always new seminars and also you get to share, commiserate, I guess, with other council members from around the state and you get to share ideas and share your challenges and struggles that we find across the state, across the nation, actually. They also, so here they have a summer session and I know summer is very busy, but if you're able to, I highly recommend council and commission members to attend. And then if Ms. Weil, if you will, you know the details better than me.

While the fall session does break us up into mayors, council members, and then administration, this fall or this summer legislation conference is We're together, and I think that it gives you a great opportunity to sit at a table with other communities to see what strengths and weaknesses that they're dealing with and how they go about it. If you do look, this one especially has some concurrent sessions. We do attend it this year. It is in Fairbanks, so it would be attendance. from at least Thursday, August 27th through Friday, the 28th. They do have a joint conference with the Alaska Defense Forum two days prior to that. But for council, I would just really like if you would like to attend to please let us know within the next like week or two because rooms do fill up fast. and we would have to schedule what that would look like for you. In the packet, there is a draft agenda, and they do have a lot to be decided because, again, while it's short notice, it is right around the corner, and they're very good about filling the packet up.

Thank you, Ms. Wilde. Any comments or questions? This board.

None here.

Okay, thank you. All right, next item we have is council comments. Does anyone have Any items they care to discuss or bring to light. Miss loan. Ms. Borg?

No.

Was that a no? Okay. So items I would like to bring forth. It is, we're coming into late summer here. The salmon berries are ripening, the salmon are returning, the berries are ripening, the salmon are returning. And with that, so are our bears. I think people are seeing, I've been seeing, I personally have been seeing more bears. I don't know about people out there, but just a reminder, please, please, you know, practice bear awareness and safety around our community. And we want to keep our bears safe. When we keep our bears safe, we keep people safe. And so remember to have garbage cans, shut, latched dumpsters, latched. Um, we need everyone to work, to work together on this. And if you have questions or are unfamiliar with bear awareness and safety, there are tons of great resources online. Um, reputable one, um, I will share. It's pretty reputable. A lot of national park service uses it, but you can look under bearbiology.org and they are, um, I would say one of the leading, um, experts in the field and they have tons of great educational material there for you. Um, and then with that said, I guess the question for, you know, the administration, um, I guess, what are we doing as a city to help with, whether it's enforcement or having our staff take extra precautions as we run into bear season?

I think they all know it's all Hans on deck, even if it's at four o'clock in the morning when I'm Corby's getting text messages from me that the bears have got in. So, you know, it is a, um, while we can police and, and check everything, it's still, um, back onto the, the people that use those, uh, especially the dumpsters, the Lou Young park, that one, um, That bear really likes those trash cans because nobody locks them so they can just knock them over. So I think it just is more awareness and we'll continue doing what we've done in the past.

And then a follow-up, when you said bears are knocking over our dumpsters, that's something I've been seeing around and some of our new dumpsters have been knocked over and damaged. Is there something, I guess there is something we can do, but I guess the question is what needs to be done and how can we find the necessary resources to get that challenge addressed, I guess.

I'll continue working with the Public Works Department on making them more stable and putting in concrete areas.

Thank you very much. Okay, I said some stuff. Did you guys have anything maybe pop up?

I know you mentioned it early, the 4th of July and everything, but I'm just really proud that we were able to host American Hiking Society again. So volunteers that actually pay to come to Whittier, and it was, what, the third year? And our trip, you know, you have to apply every year. And when I applied again this year, it was, like, sold out immediately. There was a wait list, and... I talked to one of the representatives from American Hiking Society, and they said, like, our trip and our community's been consistently, like, the highest rated, and they go all over the country. So we're getting, like, five stars across the board, not just for the project, you know, working on the connector trail with Victor, but also, like... They mention our community and how many friends they feel like they've made and that they feel so welcome. And some of the comments and the feedback that we got in the email was overwhelmingly like they wish they could live here. So it was pretty cool.

Yeah, I guess to reiterate, so the American Hiking Society does these programs. I'm going to put my Parks and Rec hat on, my mayor hat off. They offer a program called Volunteer Vacations that people can voluntarily elect and pay to come and travel all over the country or even the world to volunteer. And so we host one of those here, and they come here and they volunteer. work willingly in the rain through the mud. And then in the evenings in the morning, they frequent our businesses. You might not realize it, but they had stories of visiting the museum, going down to our coffee shops, going on our cruises, even on their day off. One of them was so ambitious, they went and hiked Orange Pass in the morning, did a cruise, and then went kayaking in the evening. And so pretty cool. Thank you for that Jamie. I have another item and this was something I was discussing with the city manager and And I want to bring this idea up about a professional development retreat for our city. Many organizations, companies, nonprofits, teams of some sort partake in professional development retreats, and they get their teams out I guess, out of the area that they're working in, and in the name of fostering teamwork, learning about backgrounds of each of their teammates, and in the name of furthering their organization, whether it be a company, nonprofit, or a community, a city. And so I want to bring that idea forth, and that's why we talked about that. And, you know, other organizations do this. I don't know, we recently had a, in national news, we sent a team of people, our nation sent a team of people around the moon for the first time in how long? Since the Free of my history, I don't know, but it's quite a bit of time together ago. And so this crew, if you look back on it, some of these space expeditions, these teams, they get their teams together and they do. these professional development retreats and these astronauts i believe went on a an outdoor trip and they basically went camping to build and foster their teamwork because they're going to be up in space and relying on each other um for their for their lives and a lot of them comment on how much that professional development component is so crucial for a team accomplishing its missions. And I think that Whittier could benefit from something similar. We probably don't need to go camping for a week like the astronauts, but I want to throw that out there. And if we have any comments on that.

Mayor, I will add that I think it's a good idea. I think that We get stuck in these roles and they become personal. And I think that it also gives the ability for us to, outside these walls, outside this area, be able to sit down and learn about each other. You may not know it, but we may probably have a lot of things in common that we can use to build a better Whittier.

All right. Seeing no further council comments, let's open up for a citizens discussion. And time is limited to five minutes per speaker on any subject over which the council has control. Again, this is not a time for dialogue. Rather, it is time for citizens to speak and the council to listen. And Madam Clerk, do we have anyone signed in?

Yes. First on the list is Mr. Mike Bender.

Mr. Bender, come on up.

Hi, good evening. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the template here. My favorite so far is number seven about notices. Mr. McAuliffe, you asked the question that has been burning for a long time. Apparently three years ago, something happened and information about leases were sent out to leaseholders. And I think Ms. Wilde mentioned that no one responded. We were not one of those people to get the leases. We've learned from our recent experience that we will probably never miss another city council meeting. It's been so... So such a challenge to work our way through our current situation. So I like some of the information that was brought forward talking about fair market value. I think Whittier is a little bit unique. I hope it doesn't get compared to Seward and a couple other places because they're, I think, apples and oranges, if you want, or apples and pomegranates or however you like to say it. We have about six months here to gather enough revenue to pay for a 12-month lease. So I hope someone can keep that in mind for market value. I think that hopefully that'll all be fleshed out as this process continues. About the bears, I would, I guess the short answer that I see because I'm down there all the time, I would encourage waste management to bring in stronger lids because the bear crawls right through the little, it's not chicken wire, it's the next best thing to chicken wire, pulls up the corner and he's in like Flint. So he just... Yeah, he was in there the other night when the lid did not get put all the way down. For some reason, a bunch of boxes were put in there, and that was the open door. So I don't know. It would be great if we could put some teeth in some violators that they would be fined a reasonable amount. If I'd bring that, I would support that. I'd bring that forward. And let me see, on September 17th, Prince Williamstown RCAC has our meetings here. Going to be right here in this room. So they are now still looking for probably accommodations. So if you have an extra bunk bed, that probably doesn't qualify. But anything, if you know of rooms available, I can get you the contact number over there. It's either that or they'll be bringing people in from, they'll be in Girdwood and they'll provide transportation into town for the meeting, the two days of the meetings. So, good. Any questions? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bender.

Next on the list is Eric Fleming.

Mr. Fleming?

Okay, so listening to what Mike had to say, I agree with pretty much everything he had to say. It is over the past year, I've spoken more to some of the small business owners in the situations they've been confronted with. In specific, the leases as well as other challenges brought forth mostly by the city. It's sad to know that these elders, and elders, I refer to people that have been living here for 30, 40 plus years, don't get the respect that they should be getting. To grow a business, to maintain a business here in Whittier, especially prior to 2020, even prior to in 1990, it was more difficult. It's gotten easier and easier. Any small business owner here can attest that it's not easy. Year-round business here is very difficult. Even the seasonal businesses are very difficult. So I urge the council to listen to these elders, these residents that have been here for years. They have made it through the struggle, and to this day, it still isn't easy. I mean, I'm sure anyone here can attest that they're not living the high life, especially in the past few years. COVID really brought things back, and they really haven't bounced back as quickly as a lot of people had hoped. And I know this isn't really a platform for dialogue. Like you said, you guys aren't necessarily able to respond. I have looked at some of the legal fees. I know we're well over 100,000 just this year. I know I take a portion of those fees up. I'm not sure what they were last year, but I know directly involving me, they were at 50,000. uh i think mid year um and so to come down on some of these citizens uh or these residents i should say i've had uh talks with rc um rc is being treated very very ugly um he's been here since i was a little kid um and and he's he's you know he's been through the struggle he's he's not perfect Um, but it's just, it's sad. Um, uh, I've spoken to Larry Gilman in depth on things. He's had struggles. And it would be nice to see, like you had mentioned, Victor, teamwork. Like Jackie mentioned, teamwork. Respect these people that have been here for the long run. They're not perfect. None of us are. it'd be nice to be able to work with, with you guys. Uh, I, I, I'm not the type of person that puts the gloves on, um, in the boxing ring. I'd rather put the gloves on and go to work. Um, so I urge you guys to, um, communicate, uh, I know the lawyers are nice to have, but there doesn't always have to be a lawyer in between the communications. Speak from the heart, move forward with things, and I hope to do so in the near future. That's all I have to say.

Thank you, Mr. Fleming. Next up,

Next on the list is Sean Marks.

Mr. Marks.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and city councilors and city management. My name is Sean Marks, Whittier resident. Just on the topic of tonight's for citizen feedback, I think that's a great idea to have team building exercise or maybe like a weekend getaway for city managers and city counselors. And the only caveat I would say is if there was anyone and not in attendance that there's a You know, an attendance kept and that's noted on public documentation, who's in attendance and who does not attend. That would be one thing. So make it mandatory for everybody, for senior management of the city. But just growing up and playing team sports my whole life and as an intercollegiate student athlete, I think working in a team environment is what makes the best teams. And the team, the city managers here are the ones who are growing wittier over the next decade. you know, period of time that, uh, you're, you're in service. So thank you. And that was a great idea. Uh, with regard to the, the leases, I hope some of my redlining, uh, submissions were incorporated with the attorney. I'm not sure if they were or not. Uh, but, um, just listening to some of the community members talk about the lease process. Um, I felt it was important to have like some like kind of a middle ground input. So hopefully some of those ideas were incorporated and that was submitted, uh, a few months ago, I think, in June or May. I'm not certain. What I wanted to talk about tonight was already touched on. Two items, the general fund financial review, and then second and most important was the recusal process in Whittier. Thank you so much for going over some of the financial basis for what was published for the review ending May 31st. First and foremost, I did take some notes here, so let me refer to this. It's a little easier to read. The memorandum that I submitted to city councilors was to review the financial review ending May 31, 2026, and of the report date, We're almost at 50% of the fiscal year has elapsed. So the purpose of that was just to kind of provide some feedback to city council with a structured analysis of the year-to-date revenues and expenditures. And I had identified some of the variances of concern and to solicit staff clarifications on a number of the items that require formal responses prior to the next city council meeting having learned a little bit more about the process and the number of people that are actually working on some of these things I understand like written responses and that sort of thing is arduous to complete but just having a verbal description of what's going on is super helpful so thank you so much for doing that this evening And then on the revenue side, some of the line items, including two of the largest individual revenue sources for the general fund that reflected zero collections to date, that was one of my biggest concerns, and that was addressed earlier in the meeting. So I just thought I would suggest that, and hopefully it's just consistent with some of the seasonal billing patterns common in Alaska and the grant reimbursement cycles. And then... Second to that, in my memo, I had requested written replies, and that's unnecessary. Just having had some conversations and understanding the amount of people that are working on some of these things, I understand that's impossible to do for community review. And finally, my citizen comment specifically is on the recusal procedures for the Whittier City Council. And I wish every city councilor was here to hear this, because that was, I guess, one of the most shocking things that I had. Having sat in on some of the meetings over the past couple of months, I was surprised. So as a citizen of Whittier, I'm not accusing anybody of wrongdoing, but I do want to raise concern about the process as a citizen watching this. I understand that at some point the council may face a vote where one or a number of you has a personal or financial interest in the outcome. And my concern is that if a recusal is being considered, should the council member in question be the one voting on whether they step aside or not? And after looking into how other cities handle this matter, I found that the standard practice across municipal governments is clear that the answer is no. The interested member typically steps out voluntarily or the remaining council votes on the recusal without them. Allowing that person to vote on their own recusal creates an unnecessary appearance of impropriety, even if everyone's acting in good faith. And I'm not here to tell you how to do, you know, the counselor job, but I am here to ask that for the sake of public trust, you follow the same clean, transparent processes that most cities do. I know Whittier is small, but we do pay attention and we value that fairness. And if this situation ever comes up, I would respectfully request that The counselors consult the city attorney following the standard procedure and to let the public see that the council holds itself to the highest standard. And if there's a wittier municipal code modification or amendment that needs to occur where a recusal, where the person, the subject of the recusal is not allowed to vote, that should be made code for the town because I don't think that that's... a good thing. So thank you so much for your time this evening.

And thank you, Mr. Marks.

No others are signed in.

Thank you. Is there anybody in the audience who wishes to speak at this time on citizens for citizens discussion? Miss Bender?

I know this is the time for comments, and I'm sorry that I missed your work session because I just had a couple of clarifications and maybe if you can comment afterwards or I can find out. But the new lease template, which is agreed, great. We need to. I know that there's lots of different. So definitely in the positive direction. One thing that Jackie said, and I wanted to clarify that. So if a business is going to change their type of business, so say if that lease is... assigned for charter business, but they want to open a restaurant, is that the time when possibly the new lease template would come into place? And I'm just asking for clarifying questions. And then I didn't see anything in the lease template about competitive bid. And does that going to be clarified in the special meeting on the 4th with the new ordinance? And what we did today when you accepted this I'm just not sure of the process. So you accepted it as a, it's not, is it going to, is there another, one more step to make it a binding or did you accept it as a, I didn't exactly understand what you did when you accepted, when you voted on it. Is there another, yeah, is there another time to, that it's not, that template is not, is it final? I guess that's just what I was, Sorry. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, Richard. So through the mayor, again, it's a template. And so like the council adopted a template, which for every individual circumstance, for every individual lease or renewal, of course, we'll have personal information, personal to that lessee or that business put in there. And every single lease or renewal will still come before council. So the template is adopted as just purely a template so that administration, when they're negotiating in council, when they're approving, are working off of very consistent documents. But of course, every document will be unique to the individual lessee. But just to add to the conversation from earlier, from our perspective at legal, the 10 or so different lease templates also had 10 or so different dispute resolution provisions. I mean, some of the leases had no dispute resolution provisions. Some of them had mandatory arbitration. Others had mandatory arbitration for certain sections and then mandatory lawsuits for others. So it really is just a template that will still be negotiated with the actual language.

I absolutely agree that a template is a good idea, but not not being combative at all here, just had some clarifying questions. So it has been adopted. Basically, we have adopted it. Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bender. Ms. Wilde.

I'm speaking tonight as a citizen. My name is Jackie Wild, citizen of Whittier. Mayor and council members, tonight I not only speak to you as a citizen, but I am your city manager. But as someone who genuinely, and I am someone who genuinely cares about this community, I'm your neighbor, I'm a citizen, and the people who we serve every day and live here every day over these years. I've had the privilege of working with the city of Whittier for over five years. During this time, I've worked alongside dedicated employees who live here. They raise their families here, they volunteer here, and they care deeply about the community. They are not just city employees. They are your neighbors. They are your friends. They're my friends, my neighbors, and my coworkers. Every day, they come to work with one goal. What can we do to make Whittier a better place? Administration is hired to manage the day-to-day operations of this city. The council was elected by the people to establish the policy and provide direction. Those are two very different responsibilities and both are essential to the successful council manager form of government. Oversight is one of the council's most important responsibilities. Accountability is expected and questions are healthy. But there is a difference between oversight and micromanagement. Over the past several months, it's become increasingly difficult for the administration to carry out the work of this council and of previous councils have directed us to accomplish. There is a growing perception among some council members and some citizens that administration cannot be trusted to carry out these responsibilities. And without consistent involvement to day-to-day operation discussions, the lack of trust has created an environment where staff often feel that they've repeatedly justified professional recommendations, revisit discussions that have already been made, and spend valuable time responding to questions that have already been answered. Since becoming your city manager, I have not come before this council asking you to create a single new vision for Whittier. My focus has been carrying on out the priorities that you have already established during the years of planning into action. Project by project, grant by grant, and policy by policy. Everyday administration manages the city finances, prepares the administrators grants, negotiates complex land transfers, oversees Shotgun Cove Road projects, advances the DeLong Dock replacement, manages the Wellfield replacement project, moves Harbor Phase 3 forward, pursues the Buckner Building remodeling, modernizes your municipal code, and lease policies, supports public safety, maintains infrastructure, improves your parks, plans for future economic development, responds to public records requests, prepares city council packets, support our boards and commissions, coordinates with state and federal agencies and ensures the daily operations of the city continue without interruption. We have been delivering results. From 2023 to 2025, the administration successfully managed more than $49 million in grant funding for this community of fewer than 277 residents. That equates to nearly $177,000 in grant funds for every single resident in Whittier. Those dollars are no longer numbers on a spreadsheet. There are roads being paved, there are parks being built, there are water infrastructure being replaced. There are harbor improvements moving forward. There's lease being modernization. There's economic development opportunities taking shape. Your shotgun Cove Road, your DeLong dock. I could go on. Projects that existed only as ideas are becoming reality. Isn't that what you all wanted? Isn't that what we all needed? Trust is one of the foundations of the council manager form of government. Council establishes policy. Administration implements the policy professionally, ethically, and morally in acceptance and accordance to the law. These accomplishments are not the work of one person. They are a result in the dedicated team of public servants who care deeply about the community. I could not be more proud of the staff that I have. They show up. They work hard. They solve problems. They remain professional. There is something else. There are some things that often go unseen. In a community the size of Whittier, we are not serving strangers. We are serving our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, and sometimes even the members of that council sitting right there and the ones that aren't. One of the hardest parts of being in public service is telling the people we know and the people we care about, no. We have to explain the law that doesn't allow it. Sometimes we have to explain to counsel has adopted a policy or a direction that not everyone agrees with or believes is fair. Whether we personally agree with those decisions, it's not the point. It's not administration's role to decide which policies we support and which ones we don't. Our responsibility is to faithfully implement the decisions of the governing body, apply those decisions consistently, and treat everyone personally, every person equal under the policies that have been adopted. Those conversations are never easy. We don't leave them at the office. We see those same faces at the grocery store, in the elevator. I see some of them in this audience tonight, throughout our daily lives. Public service isn't about making easy decisions or popular decisions. It's about carrying out the law, implementing council's direction, and serving every resident with fairness, professionalism, and integrity. When operational decisions are continuously second-guessed, when professional recommendations are repeatedly revisited without new information, when staff are repeatedly asked to justify the work that falls squarely within their professional responsibility, when the administration is not trusted to carry out the policies this Council has already debated on, voted on, and adopted, progress slows. Delays increase cost, delays consume staff resources, and delays postpone projects. Administration has never sought to create a new vision for this city. Our responsibility has always been to implement the priorities established by this council and the councils in the past. Turn plans into projects, turn discussions into action, and turn ideas into results. Those results speak for themselves. I understand that serving on council is a volunteer position and I generally appreciate the time each of you dedicate to this community because you dedicated on more than just this council. But I also ask that you consider the demands placed on the employees of the city. When work sessions are postponed or not fully attended, it affects every employee who has spent their days preparing. Too often, those items return only for administration to be asked to change course. If not then, when would you like administration to do the work you've directed us to accomplish? Tonight is an example. Staff adjusted their schedules. Legal counsel made themselves available. Employees stayed beyond their normal workday because we believe the work we do is important. Administration is not asking for less accountability. We are asking for the opportunity to do the jobs you hired us to do. Hold us accountable for the results, measure us by our performance, but allow administration to use its professional judgment to carry out the policies you have adopted. Administration has always respected the role of council. Whether we personally agree with every decision is not the point. Our responsibility is to faithfully implement the policies and direction established by the governing body. All we ask in return is the same trust and respect to be extended to the professional staff that you've hired that sit here in front of you. Because I truly believe that if council and administration and this community trusted one another just a little more and focused on working together, there'd be no limit to what Whittier could accomplish. Imagine what you could build together. Imagine how many more products we could deliver. Imagine how much further we could move this community forward. That is what Whittier is, I believe, and I believe it's possible. History will not remember how many questions were asked and how many times you decided to hold something up. It will not remember how many meetings were held, but it will remember what you built. It will remember whether you solved the problems or you made more. It will remember whether you have the courage to trust one another enough to move the community forward. It will remember if you believe in your staff. I believe in my staff. I believe in my council. But most importantly, I believe in Whittier. When elected officials, administration, employees, volunteers, businesses, and residents pull in the same direction, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. The best days of Whittier are still ahead of all of us. Imagine where Whittier could be in five years from now. Better roads, better parks, better infrastructure, more opportunities, more jobs, more reasons for families to stay. The future isn't built by one council, it isn't even built by one city manager, and it isn't built by one employee. It is built when elected officials, administration and employees and volunteers and residents trust one another to work hard enough together for the same goal. Because when we do, there's very little this community could not accomplish. I know it's possible, and I believe in the best days of what you're still ahead of us. History is watching what we build. Let's make sure it remembers us for getting it right and that we did it with respect.

Thank you, Ms. Wilde. Is there anybody else in the audience who would wish to speak? Ms. Urchinger?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council, members of the public. I think I've stood up as a member of the public, maybe four times in my career over 30 years and every time I regretted it. So I hope today isn't one of those times, but sometimes it's just hard to not say the things that need to be said so. I'd like to give a little bit of perspective. When I first started working at the City of Whittier, which has, believe it or not, been seven years ago, I was told that the biggest challenge that we faced as a city at that time was cleaning up the leases. And I talked a little bit earlier tonight about what things I heard. You know, all the inconsistencies and the fact that the documentation was different for every single lessee. And worse than that, over time, the city administrations weren't fixing things. And I know why they weren't fixing things. What you've seen the last few months is exactly why they weren't fixing things, because it's so painful. And worse than being painful it's personal and it doesn't need to be personal, so I would ask everybody to just please. You know, take a deep breath it for some people it's their livelihood, so I don't mean it's not personal for them like that is as personal as it gets I just mean we can work together as a community. to improve if we try to work together and not attack each other. I think we can all get a process that will work for all of us going forward that we'll all be proud of. And we'll strengthen our business community and not run folks out of Whittier So we have a lot of inconsistencies over time. And over time, how did we address that? First of all, council said, we're going to hire an assistant city manager position. And the reason that was given is to clean up the leases. Heaven help the person in that job because I've always said, that's the job I would never want for this reason that you've seen. It's the person who has to do the actual work that is the face of the interaction between the member of the public and the city. And it's really hard. And it's no wonder we have had a revolving door in that position. And I want to thank the person in that position right now because she's a great person to have in that job. And I hope we can keep her because I have more confidence in her to be able to clean this process up than most people. um what when the council created revisions to the lease code i was on that committee i really didn't have much of a say like i could throw out ideas but i'm not a council member so i didn't you know i could say well what about this what about that and i can tell you there were two council members on the committee And those two council members decided everything that went into that lease code. They didn't say, here's these ideas. We're going to bring them before the whole council. They said, I don't like that idea out. Here's my idea. I don't like that idea out. Here's my idea. And so what came before council was, and I can say pretty much one council member's idea of what the lease code should be. And you all voted on it. So you owned it. You owned it. And that's great. That's how the process is supposed to work. But I just have to say that because I keep hearing, this isn't my code. This isn't what I wanted. And that is not my memory. So... The good news is code is meant to be changed. That's the law and you guys, you're the only people that get to change it. Our job is to enforce the code. And the one thing I've said my entire career, if you don't like it, please change it. Please change it to what you want the code to be so we can continue to do our job. And we don't wanna be the bad guy, but we are the bad guy when we have to enforce a code that's either bad code, or the code needs to be changed. What I believe I'm seeing, and this is the reason I'm here tonight, the council members are turning on the administration that is enforcing the code that the council members approved. That is not fair. I'm begging you to fix the code so we can continue to do our job without the personal animosity. It's not fair. It's not fair that the people trying to enforce your code that you passed are vilified as the reason there's a problem for running all these businesses out of town. And I'm exaggerating, but hopefully you get the point. So what I'd like to say is please change the code to reflect what you would like to see, and I'm really grateful for the gentleman, Mr. Marks, who got up and spoke earlier. Number one, I'm grateful for his excellent comments about the financial report, and also I'm really grateful for his comments about recusals. Thank you for watching and paying attention, and I hope more people are paying attention. That is not okay. And I'm saying that as a finance director, that is not okay. When someone has a significant financial conflict of interest, it is your responsibility to make that determination and say that is a significant financial conflict of interest we cannot have that person participate because when you fail to do that the entire process looks bad and it is bad and it's that bad that we are trying to overcome decades of some of those types of decisions for example former city administrators who crafted documents that then when they left, they became eligible to participate in things where they didn't have to pay what everybody else paid. There's so much of that. We're trying to close the loopholes. We're trying to follow the rules so that that behavior does not continue into the future. So nobody that I work with is trying to harm any business. What I would say is that the leases that have been discussed, my main point is those leases ended. Nobody took a lease away. They did not have options to extend. Those leases terminated. Now the question is, what do we do going forward? Let's do the right thing. I also ask you not to create a situation where we have perpetual leases. That means if I have a lease on the waterfront, I not only get a 30-year lease, but a 60-year lease or a 90-year lease. And at the end, it says when my lease is up in 90 years, I get to decide on my own whether to extend it or not. That is a perpetual lease. That is a lease where my children and my grandchildren and their children will be the only people that are ever able to operate in this town because you've created a situation where nobody else that lives in that building and that building will ever have an opportunity to open a business in this town. So I'm asking you to make sure that when you're debating on what to do about leases, that when someone has a lease that terminates, it terminates. And all they have to do is compete with everybody else for an opportunity to do business in Whittier. And finally, I'd like to say, I did say thank you to the gentleman. And I want to say that your administration works really hard to try to stand up to these challenges. And we are trying to work with people, and it might not look like that, but you can help us by fixing the code so that the things we're focusing on is continuing to follow the law and we're not being asked to break the law and do something that's not in the code. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Mr. Schinger. Is there any one else in the audience who would wish to speak for citizens discussion? Okay. Okay, next we have Council and administrative response to citizen comments. Anyone online?

I'd like to thank Chris for coming up and saying all that. I know a lot of people wanted to say that or have been wanting to say something like that. So thank you, Chris, for that.

Okay. Mr. Schindler and Ms. Wild, thank you for your comments. I'm going to admit, I'll let you guys go over on time. And I have something, I guess, to speak to that. And, you know, I know much of our staff, you know, I've talked with many of them on a, on every day, like a day to day schedule and stuff. And it is challenging to work in this community. And as a council member, um, You know, people are, they call you at funny times of the night or they catch you on your day off or when you're done with work, the normal hours. And that's hard. And so, you know, our staff has, they have business hours. Some of them might work a little longer than, than I think is ideal. Um, I appreciate them. And I guess one thing I'd like to put out to council members in the public is that being in a small town, we cross paths a lot. We cross paths every day, multiple times a day. And especially in Whittier, because we live so close together, it can be exhausting because you are in it. It's in your face all the time. I think the nature of the way we live here, it's always in our face. So I would ask all of us, myself, council members, public, you know, please respect us. People's boundaries. People have jobs. Yes, these are their jobs. They have a job. You know, we hired them to do a job. And it's a challenging job. And they willingly took it on. And so... And I know Whittier is a, sometimes it's a 24-7 community. It's always buzzing. We have things going on at night. We have things going on during the day. But I think it would benefit us to respect boundaries with each other both ways. You know, business owners work 24-7. I know from personal experience. But I'll leave it at that. Please respect our employees' boundaries, council member boundaries. We all signed up for a job, but let's be respectful with that because I love this town. But I'm going to say that it can be exhausting. Any other comments? We have no executive session. If there is no further business, this meeting is adjourned at 855.